An electric cable, particularly an underwater cable, is surrounded by a reinforcing armoring of steel wires for protection in the event of the cable being accidentally caught up in various objects such as anchors or fishing trawls.
When a splice is made in an armored cable, and once the cable per se has been spliced, it is necessary to interconnect the armoring wound round each of the lengths of cable.
Armor wires have previously generally been spliced by overlapping the armour wires over a given length, with each armor wire of one portion of the cable being laid between two armor wires of the other portion, and then tightly binding the cable where the armor wires overlap. The length of overlap should be about five to seven times the pitch length of the armor wires. For a large cable whose armor wires may be laid with a pitch length of as much as 3 meters, such an overlapping technique requires a prohibitive length of cable for splicing to be performed on board a cable ship.
Such overlapping and binding does not avoid the danger of slip in the event of untimely traction being applied to the cable being spliced. Further, if the cable is a single pole AC conductor, the overlapping splice does not ensure good electrical continuity between the armoring on either side of the splice.
Preferred embodiments of the present invention avoid the above drawbacks, providing a strong splice that extends over a short length only of the armoring, without significant danger of slipping, and providing good electrical continuity. A short splice of this nature may also be safely wound on a cable drum without risking damage to the cable.